Jose > Pep - is it such a ridiculous notion?

Mourinho in his prime was right up there but most of his achievements came in the space of 10 years. He has many great attributes but the ability to adapt his style to suit the changing game isn’t one of them.

I think his treble with Inter and winning the CL with Porto are greater individual achievements than anything Pep has done, when you take the quality of squads into consideration.

However he didn’t change the way football was played across the globe. Pep has undoubtably done that, even if he’s never really tested himself with lesser teams. His style of football has also stood the test of time. He’s been doing it now for 15 years and is still playing with a style no one really knows how to stop or better.
 
Is it a ridiculous notion? Probably not. Jose Mourinho is a top 5-10 manager in his own right in the all time rankings.

But Pep is still higher.
 
Matt007a said:
Mourinho in his prime was right up there but most of his achievements came in the space of 10 years. He has many great attributes but the ability to adapt his style to suit the changing game isn’t one of them.

I think his treble with Inter and winning the CL with Porto are greater individual achievements than anything Pep did, when you take the quality of squads into consideration.

However he didn’t change the way football was played across the globe. Pep has undoubtably done that, even if he’s never really tested himself with lesser teams. His style of football has also stood the test of time. He’s been doing it now for 15 years and is still playing with a style no one really knows how to stop.
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I think the ten year stretch from 04-14 was almost as good as Peps 09-12/17-23. Peps across two chapters to be fair.

Mourinho could win with teams that were not meant to win, Pep has always won with teams that are meant to win. Pep also had the GOAT and several of the top ten players of their generation in one squad, Iniesta, Xavi, Busquets etc
 
From what I remember he spent ridiculous money for Inter and left old squad that turned into United of last few years after him. You can make every argument look better if it's a monologue.

But yeah, he used to be great manager, no doubt about that.
 
Amar__ said:
From what I remember he spent ridiculous money for Inter and left old squad that turned into United of last few years after him. You can make every argument look better if it's a monologue.

But yeah, he used to be great manager, no doubt about that.
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I don't think he spent much at Inter?
 
"Bayern would've sacked him if he didn't leave"

:lol:

Why does saying something into a mic automatically make people think someone is more credible?

Jose is great, but he's no Pep. It's only between Pep and Fergie now.
 
Jose Between Porto 2004 and Inter 2010 right up there with the greatest ever. Shame about his decline from Madrid onwards.

Pep had similar with Barcelona and City.

Both right up there.
 
It depends on what you mean by ridiculous. Pep is clearly better, but we're not comparing apples and oranges here. Mourinho is elite too.
 
Pep is clearly better. So it just depends on your threshold for "ridiculous" really.
 
Murder on Zidane's Floor said:
I don't think he spent much at Inter?
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People above him made some clever signings with the whole Etoo for Zlatan swap and picking up cast-offs like Sneijder for under 'real' value because Madrid had bloated their squad so much. Still deserves lots of credit though - it's a shame the Madrid tenure essentially damaged him in certain ways, possibly irreparably, even taking into account the Chelsea PL win in his 2nd spell and a few bits of minor genius sprinkled across cup games for us and Roma....
 
I don't think it's that ridiculous except that you have to sort of ignore anything Jose has done for about the last 10 years, and also ignore the mess he leaves nearly every club in.

Biggest thing againt Pep is he's only managed teams where the players/resource he's had available means it's hard to say he's even actually over achieved, which is what I think makes it less ridiculous, as I doubt Pep would have been winning the CL with Porto or Inter
 
With all the ref bribing, fake sponsorships that cloud Pep's management stints, his only real achievement is winning the Bundesliga with Bayern right after they won their treble.
 
Pep's in such a unique position. No grind or origin story of merit; constantly plopped into elite teams with the greatest resources in their league. Under those conditions, the trophy haul is to be expected. How he gets his teams to play and the innovations he comes up with is another story entirely, however.

On trophies and the merits of what's been won, it's not close to being a wash, but in terms of what they've brought to the game at large and how their coaching in and of itself is regarded, Mourinho is stuck in an era, but Pep, like the true great ones constantly evolves and adapts - the game doesn't leave him behind. In fact, he dictates where the game shall go next, to this point in time. To have that about you for so many years is a very special quality no matter what you think of the cherry-picking he's managed to do or the financial/competitive advantages.

In terms of organic progression, warts and all, Pep can't beat Jose, but in terms of being a better coach, I don't think Jose can beat Pep.
 
Pep so far managed 3 clubs where he had everything going his way.
In Barcelona he has merit to make that team up but when you get Messi and the Spain golden generation core appearing in your time there's also a part of luck there, even if you also worked for it.
He then proceeded to screw up by getting rid of Etoo and getting Ibrahimovic (from Mou's Inter) which didn't work out for his system and in the following years watching Real build up and threaten his hegemony, which Real did, and in that precise moment Real was good enough to challenge him directly he left. I don't blame him, he had won everything with Barcelona, but in this analysis that timing clearly cut out a period where he could have been faced with competition from a team that matched his own.

In Bayern and City he had immense advantages.

In Bayern he inherited a treble winning team that had reached 3 CL finals in the 4 years before.
Reaching a CL final is not a sure measure of quality but he way he failed it says something - every time he faced an equal opponent he was crushed (0-4 at home to Real and 3-0 away to Barça) and with decent but not as good teams he struggled (losing to Atlético and struggling through extra time to get past Juventus). The only knock-out games he dispatched easily were against opponents one order of magnitude below his team.

In City he inherited an already very expensive team that was champion 2 years before, with a core of great players.
He then proceeded to just spend what others couldn't, amassing players after players and getting rid of the ones that didn't work out with no problem.
His team in City has been most of this time basically 2 teams, most of the players in his bench would start for any other team in the league.
With this squad he can rotate half the team and rest players with no drop in quality which left him with no consideration needed on what game is more important or not.
He did a great job in England and of the big teams the only one that was good enough to challenge him were Conte's (Conte won the league in the first year) that followed by lowering in quality quickly and Liverpool which rose in quality with Klopp.
He was fighting no one else: Man Utd was horrendous, Spurs are Spurs, Arsenal was still a wet noodle.
So he basically had to compete only with Liverpool after the 1st year, a Liverpool that again didn't have the luxury of his wide and star clad squad.
Then comes the CL and he failed miserably year after year being humilated by teams much weaker than his', he needed 6 years to finally beat it and when he did he benefited from other great teams either aging or not being able to afford the financial investment to keep / improve the squad especially after covid (not a problem in oilland).
Last year which big european team was good? Real had serious weaknesses, Barça was bad, Bayern was bad, he basically had no opposition, and that is where Pep shines: when he has a team one order of magnitude better than everybody else.

After Real Madrid on the other hand where did Mourinho get a team to challenge for the CL and the national titles seriously?
He did in Chelsea and he delivered, in his first year there he got 3rd place with a team with holes (winning home and away to the 2 teams above his') and the following year he bought 2-3 players and got the title.
He failed in his 3rd year spectualarly (fired when being almost in relegation zone) and then he had no other serious job to really contend in the level Pep had.
Man Utd were nowhere near a title challenge with a rotten useless squad, he actually won some minor things, he probably could have left Utd in a better situation but we're comparing to Pep and it's not possible, each one had very different tools to work with.
Then he went to Spurs.
Then he went to Roma, the perennial loser in Italy that was finishing in the lower CL places / Europa League places in the years before. He won a minor title there (something rare in Roma) and again maybe he could have improved Roma more by now but in the comparison Pep is sleeping in a completely different hotel.

Pep is clearly a good manager at managing at high level, he is able to make well organised teams that play to their strenghts and is able to keep it going after winning.
But I've never seen Pep do something more than what he was given. His Barça team was stacked, his Bayern team was stacked, his City team is stacked, and he was never faced with real competition to his jobs there - when he did he most often lost.
Mourinho has won a lot of stuff but he also had managed to get great victories with teams that clearly weren't the best in theory.
So I have to put Mourinho ahead of Pep, Pep so far has been handed golden platters every single time and sometimes he squandered it, Mourinho had both golden platters and wooden platters and he managed to win with both (not always obviously).
 
Fortitude said:
Pep's in such a unique position. No grind or origin story of merit; constantly plopped into elite teams with the greatest resources in their league. Under those conditions, the trophy haul is to be expected. How he gets his teams to play and the innovations he comes up with is another story entirely, however.

On trophies and the merits of what's been won, it's not close to being a wash, but in terms of what they've brought to the game at large and how their coaching in and of itself is regarded, Mourinho is stuck in an era, but Pep, like the true great ones constantly evolves and adapts - the game doesn't leave him behind. In fact, he dictates where the game shall go next, to this point in time. To have that about you for so many years is a very special quality no matter what you think of the cherry-picking he's managed to do or the financial/competitive advantages.

In terms of organic progression, warts and all, Pep can't beat Jose, but in terms of being a better coach, I don't think Jose can beat Pep.
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Honestly, I think recent United would have been the perfect (actual) challenge for Pep, insofar as its not set up perfectly, he'd need to improvise, but he has the right blend of authority and acute coaching skills (or at least ability to select and manage a coaching team, combined with whatever hand-son work he does) . If he took over United and turned them into unequivocally the best team in England over the next five years (barring the odd fluctuation ala City's own giving up one title to Liverpool, having to claw back and rely on a bit of luck against Arsenal last season), then he really would be in the GOAT conversation.

Because of where he is and who owns them, that's not going to happen any time soon, if ever, but there's a reason why Liverpool fans rate Shankly over Paisley despite the latter's European Cup, and why SMB is held up as a great despite not winning that many Championships in his tenure; Clough has a near-mythical status despite his best years spanning less than a decade,; building a side back up from the troughs, or from an underdog position, is great than burnishing a good side or tweaking success....
 
I’m not always a fan of Mourinho’s personality, but of course it’s a debate between him and Guardiola. Two different paths, but similar achievements
 
Baxquux said:
Honestly, I think recent United would have been the perfect (actual) challenge for Pep, insofar as its not set up perfectly, he'd need to improvise, but he has the right blend of authority and acute coaching skills (or at least ability to select and manage a coaching team, combined with whatever hand-son work he does) . If he took over United and turned them into unequivocally the best team in England over the next five years (barring the odd fluctuation ala City's own giving up one title to Liverpool, having to claw back and rely on a bit of luck against Arsenal last season), then he really would be in the GOAT conversation.

Because of where he is and who owns them, that's not going to happen any time soon, if ever, but there's a reason why Liverpool fans rate Shankly over Paisley despite the latter's European Cup, and why SMB is held up as a great despite not winning that many Championships in his tenure; Clough has a near-mythical status despite his best years spanning less than a decade,; building a side back up from the troughs, or from an underdog position, is great than burnishing a good side or tweaking success....
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He already is in the GOAT conversation. United is still the biggest club in England and one of the biggest in the world, so I'm not sure how much credit he would get for that feat from neutrals or detractors.
 
Baxquux said:
Honestly, I think recent United would have been the perfect (actual) challenge for Pep, insofar as its not set up perfectly, he'd need to improvise, but he has the right blend of authority and acute coaching skills (or at least ability to select and manage a coaching team, combined with whatever hand-son work he does) . If he took over United and turned them into unequivocally the best team in England over the next five years (barring the odd fluctuation ala City's own giving up one title to Liverpool, having to claw back and rely on a bit of luck against Arsenal last season), then he really would be in the GOAT conversation.

Because of where he is and who owns them, that's not going to happen any time soon, if ever, but there's a reason why Liverpool fans rate Shankly over Paisley despite the latter's European Cup, and why SMB is held up as a great despite not winning that many Championships in his tenure; Clough has a near-mythical status despite his best years spanning less than a decade,; building a side back up from the troughs, or from an underdog position, is great than burnishing a good side or tweaking success....
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Yeah there's still a massive caveat to Pep's career in that he's never had to face adversity or even be lumped with his mistakes. Jose can be seen as a relic, but we've seen how adversity affects him and we've seen his frustrations play out, because the odds were never always stacked in his favour. By contrast, Pep just buys a whole new <insert> or leaves. There's no merit in that, and he is different to everyone else in these conversations in that regard.

The great what if with Pep is what would he have done with a disjointed squad at a club in disarray who could not give him everything he asked for all at once and on a whim? Could he get a group of sub-optimal players to function as a team like so many others in the greatest manager discussions did? What would he look like in a real injury crisis where the subs were significantly weaker than the starters, do his systems and innovations still come to the fore and win the day?
 
I'll address the point in the video I'm most familiar with:

"He basically chased Pep out of Barcelona with that 100 point title."

This isn't really true. It's just something people say to make his time at Real Madrid seem more successful than it was.

Guardiola left Barcelona for various reasons, the main one is he never had a good relationship with Sandro Rossell, who replaced Laporta as President in Guardiola's third season. Mourinho's record against Barcelona just wasn't that good. In two years at Real Madrid his only wins were: Copa del Rey final, 1 league match that decided the league in 11/12. The defeats were: CL semis, Supercup, Copa del Rey QFs, and 2 league matches (including the 5-0 game at the Camp Nou). The 100 point title is somewhat overrated. Not because it isn't an achievement, but because the baseline was already high; Real Madrid and Barcelona were finishing their campaigns with point tallies in the mid to high 90s. In fact, the season after Guardiola left, Barcelona won the league with 100 points and RM were far behind. So the narrative that Jose had 'vanquished' them or whatever lasted very little.
 
Winning the CL with Porto and the treble with Inter are better achievements than anything Pep has done, but Pep changed european football and then dragged the premier league kicking and screaming along with it. He’s also got longevity on his side, still being at his peak now. Jose was washed up after 10 years.

I still like Jose personally but it’s pretty clear pep is the better coach.
 
That video is also a bit misleading about Inter. The guy makes it sound like it was a job where he had to live off scraps.

Inter were a very wealthy team, and in an advantageous position: they were able to take a lot of great talent post-Calciopoli and establish themselves as the undisputed top dog of Italy overnight. It was not a super challenging job domestically, they'd won the league and reached the cup final the two seasons previous to Mourinho's arrival.
 
Iker Quesadillas said:
I'll address the point in the video I'm most familiar with:

"He basically chased Pep out of Barcelona with that 100 point title."

This isn't really true. It's just something people say to make his time at Real Madrid seem more successful than it was.

Guardiola left Barcelona for various reasons, the main one is he never had a good relationship with Sandro Rossell, who replaced Laporta as President in Guardiola's third season. Mourinho's record against Barcelona just wasn't that good. In two years at Real Madrid his only wins were: Copa del Rey final, 1 league match that decided the league in 11/12. The defeats were: CL semis, Supercup, Copa del Rey QFs, and 2 league matches (including the 5-0 game at the Camp Nou). The 100 point title is somewhat overrated. Not because it isn't an achievement, but because the baseline was already high; Real Madrid and Barcelona were finishing their campaigns with point tallies in the mid to high 90s. In fact, the season after Guardiola left, Barcelona won the league with 100 points and RM were far behind. So the narrative that Jose had 'vanquished' them or whatever lasted very little.
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I remember we finished with 90 something points under Pelligrini, and despite that, i do find it hard to call that team good, softest RM side i have seen, getting mauled by Barca, doing the usual R16 number in UCL, and lost to some side i don't remember in CDR.

Basically everytime it mattered, team just folded, if Mourinho gets credit for anything, its for turning these players into men, capable of competing in big matches again.

As far as Pep vs Mourinho goes, have to give it to Pep, that ship sailed a while ago, though, though Mourinho has one thing over Pep, winning with a genuine underdog, Porto.
 
And Harry Redknapp is the best manager at developing youth talents.
 
adexkola said:
None of them did what Roberto Di Matteo or Claudio Raineri did in a season. Those are my 2 top managers of all time
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Totally agree
Spare a thought for no license Avram Grant who made a CL final which Jose never did
 
If you discount Pep's confirmed cheating eras (as a player on PEDs, Barca refereeing corruption, City financial dropping/money laundering/fraud), you are left with winning the Bundesliga with Bayern Munich.

Mourinho is comfortably ahead.
 
2 man midfield said:
Winning the CL with Porto and the treble with Inter are better achievements than anything Pep has done, but Pep changed european football and then dragged the premier league kicking and screaming along with it. He’s also got longevity on his side, still being at his peak now. Jose was washed up after 10 years.

I still like Jose personally but it’s pretty clear pep is the better coach.
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Has any coach matched winning a league with Leicester?

Ranieri should be the GOAT
 
Camara said:
He then proceeded to screw up by getting rid of Etoo and getting Ibrahimovic (from Mou's Inter) which didn't work out for his system and in the following years watching Real build up and threaten his hegemony, which Real did, and in that precise moment Real was good enough to challenge him directly he left. I don't blame him, he had won everything with Barcelona, but in this analysis that timing clearly cut out a period where he could have been faced with competition from a team that matched his own.
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I think this is exaggerating the state of things, really.

Real Madrid "challenged" for the league title in 08/09; they lost the Clasico heavily, which left them 7 points adrift, and after that quit playing and lost the next four games too. So the final result was quite lopsided. The next season Real Madrid also "challenged." They finished the league campaign with 96 points, outscored Barcelona (102 to 98), and only dropped 5 points in the entire 2nd half of the campaign. Barcelona won by winning the Clasicos, which had narrow results (1-0, 0-2).

Barcelona were better but Real Madrid was challenging, Barcelona were simply beating them. In fact the worst "challenge" of those years was under Mourinho in 12/13, he finished 15 points behind Barcelona.

Barcelona were still beating Real Madrid on aggregate even in that 100 point league, Barcelona had the goal advantage for the Clasicos, won the two-legged Supercup and the two-legged Copa del Rey tie.
 
Taribo's Gap said:
He already is in the GOAT conversation. United is still the biggest club in England and one of the biggest in the world, so I'm not sure how much credit he would get for that feat from neutrals or detractors.
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I suspect if you took a poll of neutrals , by a strong majority they'd admit two things. Firstly getting this club under its present ownership and executive structure to finish consistently top of the league over the next few years (or to have hypothetically done so under similar circumstances in the last years) would be a substantial achievement, far outstripping doing the same for Man City post 2016. Secondly, there are question marks over Pep's greatness because the size of the challenges he'd had to face, given the player/structural resources available, were far less than other GOAT/all time top tier managers (SAF chiefly, but also the likes of Clough, Shankly, Busby, just in terms of the UK) had to.

SAF rebuilt numerous sides in different eras, competed in his last 10 years against at least one side that was consistently outspending his (and post 2009, two of them), having done so previously for Aberdeen against the Old Firm; dealing with various eras of player and changes to the league through managerial imports and approaches more radical than Pep has had to confront in a much more homogenized game which is more about small-details. There are also scandals hanging over Pep's greatest pre City achievements in terms of PEDs, which still haven't been reckoned with (in fact, largely whitewashed now), even before we get to City's shenanigans. And that's just for starters...

Honestly, there's case that without some dubious ''performance' enhancers and inheriting Messi., Xavi and Iniesta, just as they were coming into their primes, and then being allowed to go and rack up titles in a loaded dice of a Bundesliga, he'd never have gained the carte blanche and 'player authority' to do his experiments on an already absurdly talented, well-recruited squad borne aloft on virtually infinite resources (and underhanded, regulation evading payments). He's never had a structural challenge of the kind that defines truly epochal managers...
 
I’ve never really understood the hype and brown nosing around Pep. I’ve never been that impressed by him, especially as he has always had optimal squads at his disposal. Feels like he’s a chosen Son and success has been handed to him.
 
Still think Pep us greater. But Mourinho's acheivements are incredible.
 
Baxquux said:
I suspect if you took a poll of neutrals , by a strong majority they'd admit two things. Firstly getting this club under its present ownership and executive structure to finish consistently top of the league over the next few years (or to have hypothetically done so under similar circumstances in the last years) would be a substantial achievement, far outstripping doing the same for Man City post 2016. Secondly, there are question marks over Pep's greatness because the size of the challenges he'd had to face, given the player/structural resources available, were far less than other GOAT/all time top tier managers (SAF chiefly, but also the likes of Clough, Shankly, Busby, just in terms of the UK) had to.

SAF rebuilt numerous sides in different eras, competed in his last 10 years against at least one side that was consistently outspending his (and post 2009, two of them), having done so previously for Aberdeen against the Old Firm; dealing with various eras of player and changes to the league through managerial imports and approaches more radical than Pep has had to confront in a much more homogenized game which is more about small-details. There are also scandals hanging over Pep's greatest pre City achievements in terms of PEDs, which still haven't been reckoned with (in fact, largely whitewashed now), even before we get to City's shenanigans. And that's just for starters...

Honestly, there's case that without some dubious ''performance' enhancers and inheriting Messi., Xavi and Iniesta, just as they were coming into their primes, and then being allowed to go and rack up titles in a loaded dice of a Bundesliga, he'd never have gained the carte blanche and 'player authority' to do his experiments on an already absurdly talented, well-recruited squad borne aloft on virtually infinite resources (and underhanded, regulation evading payments). He's never had a structural challenge of the kind that defines truly epochal managers...
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I don't really disagree with much of this. It doesn't change the fact that Pep is already in the GOAT conversation though. Also, what you might find if Pep achieved that with United is a bunch of hindsight bias and ex-post rationalization for why it was not that great of an achievement, citing the stature and resources of United.

SAF definitely has things that Pep does not and Pep has things that SAF does not. They're still both in the conversation, along with others. Not sure why this is that controversial. There's a near 50-page thread on this very forum with many United fans making arguments in Pep's favor, even bearing all of his baggage in mind. The extent to which this happened was actually surprising to me, because I would probably still have SAF clear of Pep.

Are you suggesting that Pep is not an epochal manager? So much of modern football is discussed by reference to Pep and his tenure and ideas. He is a common reference point in terms of style, standards, methods etc. He seems the very essence of an epochal manager and I don't believe a structural challenge of that nature is necessary to meet that criteria, though it is obviously helpful. Maybe we just disagree on what constitutes an epochal manager.

You can go through every great manager's record and start adding caveats, qualifiers and what if's. Every managerial ascent to the upper echelons of greatness is going to involve some component of good fortune. I prefer just looking at what has actually transpired within the appropriate context.
 
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